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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 4493059, member: 1969"] Slaughter made sense as a transitory champ in 1991 (because they needed a really hated Heel at WM7_ - looking back it Rude may have also worked as that transition champ especially since he was feuding with Warrior in 1990. Per Bruce Pritchard the original guy they had targeted as the transition champ in 1991 was "Sheik" Tugboat which is insane. Backlund winning the title in 1994 was wacked -- that being said I loved the wacky old man gimmick in 1994. Some of his interviews (saw him the other day were great), especially compared to what he did in his awful title reign in the late 70's - early 80;s. But he should have never held the title in 1994 Its not really nuts for any of those guys (that did not win) when you look back at the WWE how things went from 1984 to end of 1991. There was not much title flipping and heels never defended the title successfully and were just the odd transition champs. And its hard to question the model from 1984 to 1989 that resulted in one of the most prosperous times in any wrestling federation's history. You have to remember that the WWF until early 1992, always went with the model of having a World Heavyweight Champion that was a fan favourite, with long title runs and having a heel, typically a monster that was chasing the champ that would fall to the champ after two house show matches. And it worked very well financially until fans started to tire of it around 1990. I'll focus on 1984 on - but from 1984 to the end of 1991 (the period that was the peak of Dibiase, Rude, Piper, Perfect) there was never really a "Heel" Champion that defended the belt successfully. Hogan held from 84 to 88. To transfer the title to Savage in 1988, they had Andre hold the title for a few minutes. To transfer the title to Hogan in 89, they had Savage turn heel for less than two months. They had Hogan transfer the title to Warrior in 1990 in a face vs face match. Then Warrior got the title in 1990, and that run was a disaster financially (some on Warrior, a lot on WWE model of a muscled hero champion not being alluring anymore). The WWE reacted by thinking it needed to go back to Hogan -- in retrospect neither Hogan or Warrior were the solution starting in 1991, people had grown tired of that model. So they needed a transitory champion in early 1991 before WM7 -- of the guys you listed -- Piper was gone, Dibiase was way past peak of 1987/88 Ramon had yet arrived. Perfect was injured I believe but did not have the heat. Rude could have worked -- had hit beat Warrior in 1990 and then have him lose at WM7. But they wanted someone with massive heat that was "new" for Hogan to conquer and Slaughter's Iraqi gimmick (not as a wrestler) arguably was best for that. So Slaughter made a bit of sense - he had been away since 1984. Hogan took it back in 1991 but the WWE realized Hogan had peaked and the WWE moved away from it. Taker was a 3 day transition champ. Only once Flair took the title in 1992 did the WWE model really change. To more people holding the titles, of both stripes, shorter reigns and being good workers. Of your list Piper was gone by 1992. Rude was gone by 1992. Dibiase was well past his prime by 1992. Perfect was hurt by early 1992 and didn't wrestle much WWE after 1991. That being said from 1992-1996 I thought Ramon would have made sense at least once -- he would have been better than Diesel in my view. Although neither would have been a strong champ, but that is more on the era. That was a tough era for the WWE even if they had really good technical wrestlers delivering great matches like Bret and Shawn. [/QUOTE]

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